


Man Out of Time

by Icarusdusoleil



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Slaughterhouse Five, POV Bucky Barnes, injury mention, torture mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:18:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3906061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarusdusoleil/pseuds/Icarusdusoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One man, two different times. He asked himself many times which time was the real time—which man was really him. The young boy with an easy smile or the dead-eyed soldier with scars carved deep into his soul. Both men died, years apart. They never met. So it goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man Out of Time

James Buchanan Barnes has come unstuck in time.

It is 1945 and he stands on the edge of a cliff, Captain America to his right and the rest of the Howling Commandos are behind him.

They’re waiting for a train.

He turns to Captain America and starts to say, “Remember that time I made—

 

—soup with chicken this time, isn’t that great?” Bucky grins and passes the soup to his shivering friend.

Steve smiles wanly and takes the steaming bowl with unsteady hands. Bucky grabs the bowl as Steve’s hands shake violently and spill the hot broth on the ground. His friend is so weak, he can’t even keep the bowl balanced. Bucky is just glad that the broth didn’t splash onto Steve’s arms.

“Don’t worry, I can feed it to you,” Bucky says quietly and Steve tries to protest. But Bucky gently pulls the bowl out of Steve’s hands, sits down, and—

 

—checks the scope on his Italian bolt-action rifle. The Winter Soldier watches the street below. People gather around and cars appear around the corner. He checks the time. 12:26. The cars move closer and the Winter Soldier finds his target. He fires at 12:30 and calls for extraction at 12:40.

It is November 22, 1963 and the Winter Soldier has completed—

 

—basic training and now he has the papers and the uniform to prove it.

Bucky tries not to cry when he sees his reflection in the mirror, because suddenly he doesn’t feel ready. He hears footsteps and turns to see—

 

—the mousey man sputter indignantly as Bucky spits in his face. Zola pulls off his round glasses and mutters something under his breath, but Bucky can’t think straight or see straight. His head rolls to the side and he can feel whatever they injected into him start to work. His vision starts to get dark around the edges and the world seems to slow down.

“Please do not do that, Mr. Barnes,” Zola’s voice sounds distant.

Bucky closes his eyes and responds with, “Sergeant Barnes, 32557. Sergeant Barnes, 32557. Sergeant Barnes, 32557.”

He hears Zola stand and start to move his tools around. The metal clinks and Bucky cringes with each little noise, anticipating the torture to come.

“Sergeant Barnes, 32557. Sergeant Barnes, 32557.” He—

 

—helps the small boy to his feet. The bullies ran off and Bucky and the other boy are alone in the alley.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks and helps dust off the other boy, who nods solemnly, even though his eyes are brimming with tears.

“I had ‘em on the ropes,” the boy mumbles.

“Sure did,” Bucky offers a grin and holds out his hand to shake, “My name is James Buchanan Barnes, but all my friends call me Bucky on account of my middle name.”

“I’m Steve,” the little boy smiles and holds out his hand—

 

—but he can’t reach. He tries to stretch further, grabbing helplessly at empty air. Steve shouts at him but his voice is carried away by the roar of the wind. The metal rail shutters in his grip and then suddenly Bucky is falling. He sees Steve lunge and Bucky screams—

 

—with laughter as Steve rounds the corner, a pillow held tightly in his little fists. Bucky jumps into action, swinging his own pillow at his friend. Steve deftly ducks to the side and lands a low hit on the back of Bucky’s shins.

Bucky shouts and falls to the floor. He manages to roll over onto his back, laughter catching in his throat. Steve is on top of him, and with an evil gleam in his eye, he asks, “Do you—

 

—know what your name is?”

He looks up at the man in the white coat and notices that the bow tie is crooked. He idly thinks that the bow tie seems a little old fashioned, and then realizes that he doesn’t know what that thought actually means. Has he seen this man before?

Has this man worn a bowtie before or is he thinking of another man, with round glasses and a shrewish, nervous face. His eyes flutter as the past and present begin to blend together.

“Do you know what your name is?” The man repeats.

Once he may have responded with a number and a rank. Once he may have responded with a name, but he can’t remember that name. Maybe it starts with an S.

“Tell me what your name is,” The man says, dispassionate.

It used to be so easy, answering this question. Or was it easy at all? He can’t remember now, but he feels like his name is something he is proud of. Not his real name, but the name that he was given as a nickname. The name that everyone calls him.

He opens his mouth and speaks, in a voice that is much older (or younger?) than he expects, “My name is—

 

—Зимний Солда.”

He looks at the file and reads the words on the front over and over. He knows these words very well, but it is strange to see it written in such fine print on an unassuming folder. It’s written in Russian, but he knows what it says. Can he read Russian? He takes a deep breath and turns the page.

There are pictures. He knows the faces just as well as he knows the words. One man, two different times. He asked himself many times which time was the real time—which man was really him. The young boy with an easy smile or the dead-eyed soldier with scars carved deep into his soul. Both men died, years apart. They never met. So it goes.

He turns the page reads the date. It’s—

 

—1945 and James Buchanan Barnes lies at the bottom of the cliff. He fell off the train and reached for an outstretched hand, but the rail he clung onto gave way and he fell.

He lies in a pool of frozen blood and stares up at the sky. He knows James Buchanan Barnes is dead. So it goes.

But he only appears dead. James Buchanan Barnes is very much alive. He lives in the past and he lives in pictures and he lives in the memoirs of his journal that he kept during the war and he lives in the minds of those who knew him.

So, James Buchanan Barnes is alive in the past… but the man in the snow is still breathing now, lying in a pool of frozen blood in the snow. He—

 

—has severe skull fractures and intracranial hemorrhage; cervical vertebrae fractures; left femur fracture; internal organ damage to the lungs, liver, and spleen; and left arm has been crushed and severed just above the elbow.

That’s what the medical charts will say.

He sees them once—no, twice. He reads the Russian words when he is on the table with the metal instruments and people in white coats all around him and he reads the words sitting on a comfortable couch with one man beside him.

He knows all of this because he can predict the future.

Or is he just reliving the past? He is—

 

—in Odessa and the woman with the red hair is persistent. She shouldn’t have been able to run this long, but he follows her from Iran to Ukraine. He is getting frustrated.

The car goes over the cliff—did he go over the cliff too?

There is no train.

He is on solid ground and the woman with the red hair has the engineer on solid ground too. He takes aim and she knows he is there, there’s a flash of red—hair?—blood.

Mission—

 

—report, now,” the man with blue eyes says again.

The slap wakes him up, brings him to now. Or then. Is he experiencing this for the first time or is it happening again and again and again and again and again and again.

“The man on the bridge. Who was he?” He thinks of the man, with his earnest face and the shield that—

 

—cast a strange silhouette on the man leaning over the table. This is not Zola. He knows the face, but not the body. The strange man hauls him to his feet with strong arms.

“Bucky.”

The nose and the mouth and the bright blue eyes and the mole along the right jawline… it’s—

 

—Steve.

“Yeah, Buck?”

He opens his eyes and for the first time, he knows where he is. Steve is here, HYDRA is gone, and he is safe. Steve is _here_.

Bucky smiles and knows that he is neither the young boy nor the scarred soldier. Those two men are dead and he says quietly, “So it goes.”

Outside, the birds question.

“ _Poo-tee-weet?_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. The lines from the book: "Listen, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", "so it goes", and "poo-tee-weet?" are really the main sources of inspiration, which is why I used those lines in this story. Those lines are not mine and belong to Kurt Vonnegut.


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